This wasn’t a “protest.” It was a fascist intimidation. The goal, said one, was “for Donald to take the stage and to completely interrupt him. The plan is to shut Donald Trump all the way down.” The mission once accomplished, another exulted: “We came in here and we wanted to shut this down. Because this is a great city and we don’t want to let that person in here.”

The “free speech” left is of course completely silent. The Trump-is-a-Nazi crowd—also completely silent. Only Trump can be the target and victim of Nazi-like tactics and still be Hitler.

Like the campus “protests” of last fall, to which in each case the relevant administration folded like a cheap tent, the success of this thuggery will breed more of it. All the wise and good will either stay publicly silent (while gloating in private) or else—when cornered—leak out the most desultory “I don’t condone it but I understand it.” Law enforcement—especially in the blue cities; which is to say, all of them—will likely not act to keep order nor take action against the “protesters,” but maximally enforce jaywalking statutes against Trump supporters. Some out of conviction, most because they know that’s what their political and media overlords demand of them.

What Sam Francis termed “anarcho-tyranny” now defines our national politics. I fear that we may be later into the late republic than even I had feared.